scholarly journals Shrunken Life: Discourses of the Cryptic and the Miniature in Madagascar

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 55-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Genese Marie Sodikoff
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Cryptic Species ◽  
Dna Barcoding ◽  
Habitat Loss ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Species Discovery ◽  
The Public ◽  
Micro Scale ◽  
The World ◽  
Public Imagination

As scientists scour remnant habitats and “unmask” cryptic species with DNA barcoding, a boom of species discovery has enchanted the world.  In Madagascar, recent discoveries of previously unknown miniature frogs, chameleons, and lemurs often photographed on human fingers or cradled in hands, have captured the public imagination. In this imagery of scale, the giant finger conveys the outsized impact of humanity on Earth, or points to what Susan Stewart (1996, p. 74) calls “a physical world of disorder and disproportion.” Although the phenomenon of insular gigantism and dwarfism has shaped scientific discourses of evolution and extinction since the nineteenth century, recent reportage on “new” miniature and cryptic species reflects a sensibility beyond wistful nostalgia for creatures past. Species miniaturism evolves out of habitat loss, and living minifauna encapsulate the contraction of existential time, all the more pronounced by the effects of climate change. Photographs of cryptic minifauna therefore compel us to reflect on the whole of our losses, while they fuel the impulse to restock the “library of life” at micro-scale.  

Memories and Expectations of Environmental Disaster: Some Lessons from the Marshall Islands

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Rudiak-Gould
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Marshall Islands ◽  
Environmental Disaster ◽  
The Public ◽  
History Of ◽  
Natural Protection ◽  
Human Habitation ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Public Imagination

The Republic of the Marshall Islands, an archipelago of low-lying coral atolls in eastern Micronesia, is one of four sovereign nations that may be rendered uninhabitable by climate change in the present century. It is not merely sea level rise which is expected to undermine life in these islands, but the synergy of multiple climatic threats (Barnett and Adger 2003). Rising oceans and increasingly frequent typhoons will exacerbate flooding at the same time that the islands’ natural protection—coral reefs—will die from warming waters and ocean acidification. Fresh water resources will be threatened by both droughts and salt contamination from flooding. Although the reaction of the coral atoll environment to climate change is uncertain, it is likely that the islands will no longer be able to support human habitation within fifty or a hundred years (Barnett and Adger 2003: 326)—quite possibly within the lifetimes of many Marshall Islanders living today. In the public imagination, climate change in vulnerable, remote locations is the intrusion of contamination into a formerly pristine environment, of danger into a once secure sanctuary, of change into a once static microcosm (see Lynas 2004: 81, 124). Archaeologists, of course, know better than this: every place has a history of environmental upheavals, and the Marshall Islands is no exception. Researchers agree that coral atolls are among the most precarious and marginal environments that humans have managed to inhabit (Weisler 1999; Yamaguchi et al. 2005: 27), existing only ‘on the margins of sustainability’ (Weisler 2001). The islands in fact only recently formed: while the reefs are tens of millions of years old, the islets that sit on them emerged from the sea only recently, probably around 2000 BP (Weisler et al. 2000: 194; Yamaguchi et al. 2005: 31–2), just before the first people arrived (Yamaguchi et al. 2005: 31–2). The new home that these early seafarers found was not so much an ancient safe haven as a fragile geological experiment—land whose very existence was tenuous long before humans were altering the global climate.

scholarly journals Search Activity in Google as an Indicator of Interest in the Issue of Climate Change in Cities

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (33) ◽  
pp. 54-65
Author(s):  
Vladimir Tikunov ◽  
Olga Chereshnya ◽  
Marina Gribok
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Search Query ◽  
Search Activity ◽  
The Public ◽  
World Community ◽  
Promising Tool ◽  
Temperature Trends ◽  
Development Policies ◽  
The World

Growing climate threats require adequate action from the world community and individual countries. Therefore, today it is extremely important for international and national sustainable development policies to obtain reliable data on the attitude of the public in different countries to the issue of climate change. An increase in the level of awareness of the world's population regarding climate change may be used as a reliable indicator of this issue. A promising tool for studying it is the Google Trends search query counting service. The article presents a comparative analysis of interest in climate change in the cities of the world and actual climate variability in these cities. To illustrate the processes of climate change, the temperature variability ratings for the largest cities of the world and Russia for a period of 36 years between 1980 are 2016 are given. It is shown that for Russia, climate problems become more urgent with the occurrence of significant negative consequences. Climate issues are becoming more important for Russia, but the awareness of significant negative consequences is negligible. As a result, there is a low correlation between global search and temperature trends.

scholarly journals Animals in Our Midst: An Introduction

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Jozef Keulartz ◽  
Bernice Bovenkerk
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Species Diversity ◽  
Habitat Loss ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Biodiversity Loss ◽  
Wild Animals ◽  
Landscape Degradation ◽  
The World ◽  
Habitat Loss And Fragmentation

AbstractIn this introduction we describe how the world has changed for animals in the Anthropocene—the current age, in which human activities have influenced the planet on a scale never seen before. In this era, we find many different types of animals in our midst: some—in particular livestock—are both victims of and unwittingly complicit in causing the Anthropocene. Others are forced to respond to new environmental conditions. Think of animals that due to climate change can no longer survive in their native habitats or wild animals that in response to habitat loss and fragmentation are forced to live in urban areas. Some animals are being domesticated or in contrast de-domesticated, and yet others are going extinct or in contrast are being resurrected. These changing conditions have led to new tensions between humans and other animals. How can we shape our relationships with all these different animals in a rapidly changing world in such a way that both animal welfare and species diversity are not further affected? We describe how animal ethics is changing in these trying times and illustrate the impacts of Anthropocene conditions on animals by zooming in on one country where many problems, such as biodiversity loss and landscape degradation, converge, the Netherlands. We conclude by giving an overview of the different chapters in this volume, which are organised into five parts: animal agents, domesticated animals, urban animals, wild animals and animal artefacts.

Determinants and Measurement of Climate Change Risk Perception, Worry, and Concern

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sander van der Linden
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Risk Perception ◽  
Policy Support ◽  
Sensory Level ◽  
Climate Change Risk ◽  
Climate Conditions ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Social And Cultural Factors

Individuals, both within and between different countries, vary substantially in the extent to which they view climate change as a risk. What could explain such variation in climate change risk perception around the world? Climate change is relatively unique as a risk in the sense that it is difficult for people to experience directly or even detect on a purely perceptual or sensory level. In fact, research across the social and behavioral sciences has shown that although people might correctly perceive some changes in long-term climate conditions, psychological factors are often much more influential in determining how the public perceives the risk of climate change. Indeed, decades of research has shown that cognitive, affective, social, and cultural factors all greatly influence the public’s perception of risk, and that these factors, in turn, often interact with each other in complex ways. Yet, although a wide variety of cognitive, experiential, socio-cultural and demographic characteristics have all proven to be relevant, are there certain factors that systematically stand out in explaining and predicting climate change risk perception around the world? And even if so, what do we mean, exactly, by the term “risk perception” and to what extent does the way in which risk perception is measured influence the outcome? Last but certainly not least, how important is public concern about climate change in determining people’s level of behavioral engagement and policy-support for the issue?

Human- Induced Climate Change Arguments Offered By Those Who Dissent

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael B. McElroy
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Climate Science ◽  
Current Understanding ◽  
Wall Street ◽  
The Public ◽  
Personal Opinion ◽  
The World ◽  
Explicit Prejudice ◽  
The Wall Street Journal

Chapter 4 presented an extensive account of current understanding of climate change. The evidence that humans are having an important impact on the global climate system is scientifically compelling. And yet there are those who disagree and refuse to accept the evidence. Some of the dissent is based on a visceral feeling that the world is too big for humans to have the capacity to change it. Some is grounded, I believe, on ideology, on an instinctive distrust of science combined with a suspicion of govern¬ment, amplified by a feeling that those in authority are trying to use the issue to advance some other agenda, to increase taxes, for example. More insidious are dissenting views expressed by scientists on the opinion pages of influential newspapers such as The Wall Street Journal (WSJ). If scientists disagree, the implication for the public is that there is no urgency: we can afford to wait until the dust settles before deciding to take action— or not, as the case may be. Missing in the discourse triggered by these communications is the fact that, with few exceptions, the authors of these articles are not well informed on climate science. To put it bluntly, their views reflect personal opinion and in some cases explicit prejudice rather than objective analysis. Their communications are influential, nonetheless, and demand a response. I begin by addressing some of the general sentiments expressed by those who are either on the fence as to the significance of human- induced climate change or who may already have made up their minds that the issue is part of an elaborate hoax to mislead the public. There are a number of recurrent themes: The data purporting to show that the world is warming have been manipu-lated by climate scientists to enhance their funding or for other self- serving reasons.Climate science is complicated; scientists cannot predict the weather. Why should we believe that they could tell us what is going to happen a decade or more in the future? The planet has been warmer in the past; we survived and maybe even prospered.

An Ordinary Country

2010 ◽  
Vol 69 (3) ◽  
pp. 687-690
Author(s):  
Dilip Menon
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
World Cup ◽  
The Public ◽  
South Africans ◽  
The World ◽  
The Media ◽  
Public Imagination

South Africans see themselves as a nation that loves sport, but with the World Cup in football imminent, there appears to be a sense of exhaustion both in the media and among the population. One important reason is that football does not dominate the public imagination of sport, as cricket and rugby do. The game is played and loved in the black townships, the fortunes of African football-playing nations are followed devotedly, and players such as Didier Drogba have a larger-than-life standing in the country. But football has not become a metaphor for the nation, as rugby and cricket have become. Whether this reflects a racial affiliation alone is hard to get at, because the local team, Bafana (which could be genially translated as “the boys”), are eighty-eighth in the FIFA rankings, without a ghost of a chance of winning the Cup, while at rugby and cricket, South Africa are world beaters.

scholarly journals Words Representation of Postfeminism in Indonesian Heroine Character : Case Study of Valentine Film

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 47-56
Author(s):  
Daniar Wikan Setyanto ◽  
Santosa Soewarlan ◽  
Sumbo Tinarbuko
Keyword(s):  
Image Reconstruction ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Female Representation ◽  
The Public ◽  
Self Image ◽  
Ideal Image ◽  
The World ◽  
Public Imagination ◽  
The Ideal

The heroine is a character who has succeeded in embracing the public imagination in terms of self-image and became the ideal image of female, including in Indonesia. The character of Srimaya/ Valentine is a heroine character coming from local comic taken into Indonesia’s movies. The image presented on Srimaya/ Valentine is the symptom of capitalism in the Indonesian’s movies, the character is also one of the case studies in image reconstruction product or the representation of female using their image as a heroine. The discourse of female representation in the character of Srimaya/ Valentine does not only show about image idealized however it also represents the ideology of post-feminism as well as a politic of identity presented in the world of local films. The achievement of identity exceeds physical image from female because, in character, there are many symbols about feminists. This research was done to know the discourse of identity in view of post-feminism delivered in the film of Valentine(2017).

scholarly journals One becomes two: second species of the Euwallacea fornicatus (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Scolytinae) species complex is established on two Hawaiian Islands

PeerJ ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. e9987 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul F. Rugman-Jones ◽  
Michelle Au ◽  
Valeh Ebrahimi ◽  
Akif Eskalen ◽  
Conrad P.D.T. Gillett ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Cryptic Species ◽  
Dna Sequences ◽  
Species Complex ◽  
Hawaiian Islands ◽  
Native Range ◽  
Public Repository ◽  
High Resolution Melt ◽  
The Public ◽  
Geographic Origins ◽  
The World

The cryptic species that make up the Euwallacea fornicatus species complex can be readily distinguished via their DNA sequences. Until recently, it was believed that the Hawaiian Islands had been invaded by only one of these cryptic species, E. perbrevis (tea shot hole borer; TSHB). However, following the 2016 deposition of a DNA sequence in the public repository GenBank, it became evident that another species, E. fornicatus (polyphagous shot hole borer; PSHB), had been detected in macadamia orchards on Hawaiʻi Island (the Big Island). We surveyed the two most-populous islands of Hawaiʻi, Big Island and Oʻahu, and herein confirm that populations of TSHB and PSHB are established on both. Beetles were collected using a variety of techniques in macadamia orchards and natural areas. Individual specimens were identified to species using a high-resolution melt assay, described herein and validated by subsequent sequencing of specimens. It remains unclear how long each species has been present in the state, and while neither is currently recognized as causing serious economic or ecological damage in Hawaiʻi, the similarity of the newly-confirmed PSHB population to other damaging invasive PSHB populations around the world is discussed. Although the invasive PSHB populations in Hawaiʻi and California likely have different geographic origins within the beetle’s native range, they share identical Fusarium and Graphium fungal symbionts, neither of which have been isolated from PSHB in that native range.

scholarly journals Proposal of public policies regarding the mental and emotional health of the population

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 17-22
Author(s):  
Panait (Loghin) Claudia Daniela
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Emotional Health ◽  
Professional Life ◽  
Terrorist Attacks ◽  
Policy Proposal ◽  
The Public ◽  
The People ◽  
The Family ◽  
The World ◽  
Anxiety Depression

A percentage of 13% of EU citizens are affected, at some point in their life, by depression. Paradoxically, Romanians are among the happiest Europeans, despite constant economic difficulties. However, surveys show that people are increasingly worried, suffering from anxiety, depression and stress. A recent study shows that 20% of Romanians suffer from mental disorders. Most are adults who have problems in professional life, in society, in the family. Such patients are always sad, without desire for life, they are withdrawn, they do not want to socialize. Anxiety is the main disease suffered by Romanians and even people around the world. Romanians are afraid of the economic crisis, corruption, poverty, climate change, terrorist attacks, crime. The objective of the public policy proposal is to approach with priority the mental and emotional health of the people in Romania.

The Promise and Perils of Wearable Technologies

2018 ◽  
pp. 51-63
Author(s):  
John Gammack ◽  
Andrew Marrington
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Wearable Technology ◽  
Wearable Devices ◽  
Mobile Technologies ◽  
Security And Privacy ◽  
Google Glass ◽  
The Public ◽  
High Profile ◽  
The World ◽  
Public Imagination

Wearable technology collectively describes some of the most exciting emerging technologies, encompassing smart gadgets, garments, jewelry, and other devices worn on the user's body. In recent years, high profile wearable devices such as the Google Glass, Apple Watch, and FitBit have captured both the public imagination and headlines. Wearable technology has the potential to change the world even more profoundly than other mobile technologies. The appearance of such high profile wearable devices in the end-consumer market has also lead to serious consideration of the implications of such technologies, previously limited to the pages of science fiction. The implications for security and privacy of individuals and organizations, and the potential dangers to both society and the economy, must be considered and addressed in order for wearable technology to successfully deliver upon its many promises. Through addressing such concerns, the pathway to a “wearable future” can be unlocked, and users can adopt wearable technology with confidence.

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